Rescinded. The recent decline in the COVID-19 mortality rate in Virginia falls within the bounds of normal variation. I never would have guessed that, as the number of persons involved should have yielded a stable mortality rate. Not so. Here’s the “concurrent” mortality rate (each day’s deaths over each day’s newly diagnosed cases), shown as a seven-day moving average. The recent “decline” is that last bit on the end, and is clearly within normal variation.
Original short-sighted post follows.
Source: Calculation from counts obtained from the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard, 10-15-2020. Black line is deaths, blue and orange are cases and hospitalizations, respectively. These three different data series are normed so that they have the same average value of the time period shown. Hence, there is no label on the Y-axis. Continue reading Post #867: RESCINDED. Why is the COVID-19 death rate declining in Virginia?